Stephen A. Smith claims race was an issue after Deion Sanders shut down CBS reporter during press conference

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith explained that University of Colorado Boulder head coach Deion Sanders snubbed a CBS Colorado reporter by the name of Eric Christensen because the network took a story from a Black reporter after he did his research and gave the assignment to a white reporter.

“A reporter, who happened to be a brother, had a story that they were working on, and the story was about to come out,” said Smith. “And when the information was accumulated, the brother was taken off the story, according to people close to Deion Sanders. And in return, it was given to somebody who was white. ‘Prime Time’ Deion Sanders had a problem with that. He may not tell you. Most other folks may not know; I’m telling you. According to folks close to Deion Sanders, that’s what happened — that’s precisely what happened.

“A young brother that was working on a story, had the story taken from him and given to somebody white. Deion Sanders took issue with that. And that’s why he reacted the way he reacted toward CBS.”

As soon as Christensen informed Sanders that he was affiliated with CBS, Sanders snubbed him and criticized the network’s decision as “foul.” Even after Christensen made Sanders aware of the fact that he worked at a local scale rather than a national one, that wasn’t enough to appease the latter.

Initially, it was unclear as to what Sanders’ beef with CBS was about. Phillip Dukes suggested that a business deal gone wrong was the reason for his ire directed towards the network, and Sanders responded to his friend on X (formerly known as Twitter).

Smith thought at first that Sanders’ beef with CBS stemmed from the latter’s time spent serving as an NFL analyst with the network in the early 2000s and admitted as much.

“Obviously, I’m here thinking CBS is CBS; that must be the reason why,” said Smith, “because Deion Sanders was working with (Marino), and I think Boomer Esiason and his mentality was, ‘Wait a minute now, I’m the one with two Super Bowl Championships. I’m the one recognized as the greatest cornerback in the history of football. I’m the one that’s a champion, and I’m working alongside people that weren’t, and how are they getting paid more than me?’ I remember that story from years ago.”

The start of the Buffaloes’ season is right around the corner. In less than two weeks — Aug. 29 to be exact — Colorado will be at home against North Dakota State University.

The Buffaloes will look to amend what was an inauspicious 2023 campaign. The team ended the season with a record of 4-8 and had a particularly difficult time beating opponents in its conference: the Pac-12. Colorado won just one of its nine matchups against such opponents a season ago.

Ultimately, a rough patch to end the season marred the Buffaloes’ campaign. After all, the team owned a solid 4-2 record at one point and picked up wins against programs such as the University of Nebraska and Arizona State University. But Colorado then went on to drop each of its last six games of the season, and the losing streak was highlighted by an embarrassing 56-14 loss to Washington State University.